Somewhere in the capital of Stone Island stood a large palace, with a multicolored garden. At this moment, a young woman with blond hair and green eyes sat at one of the tables in this garden, sipping on her tea calmly.
'I haven't gone out to do business in the Brown Kingdom for over a year by now… I wonder how far the Black Plain might have developed,' the young woman mused while playing with a lock of her hair with one hand.
The young woman was Elen Nash, the merchant with whom Minos had made an exclusive deal about more than a year ago.
At this moment, a beautiful woman approached Elen with a worried look on her face. This woman also had blond hair and wore a green dress, which only accentuated her sensual curves to the point of attracting even other women.
But it was not until this woman called her that Edlen noticed her presence since she was lost in her own thoughts.
"Elen, I have some bad news. Unfortunately, we have lost contact with all of our subordinates in the Kingdom of Waves…" The beautiful woman then began reporting the situation to Elen with a solemn tone.
…
Meanwhile, in the principal city of the Red Valley in the Brown Kingdom, Otis Silva, the current patriarch of the Silva family, was in a meeting with four other subordinates of his family who were Spiritual Kings.
They were in a well-lit and luxuriously decorated room with some high-end paintings hung on the walls, a large bookshelf on the left side of the room, a glass table in the center, and two large sofas in front of each other. And at the end of the room was an armchair, with its back facing the balcony from the office.
At that moment, one of the subordinates, who looked quite young and sat on one of the two sofas said with a serious expression. "Patriarch, recently there has been a lot of bandit activity in the region of the border between the Kingdom of the Waves and the Black Plain."
"And because of this, some of our 4th-stage subordinates disappeared along with the items they were transporting a few weeks ago. I recommend using a different route to get to the Kingdom of Waves. This is at least for the short term until the situation returns back to normal."
The patriarch frowned and spoke unhappily. "I heard about it, but I didn't think the situation would escalate to this point... Isn't the Kingdom of Waves going to take any action against it? If this continues, our business in the kingdom will only be delayed!"
The bandits were a significant issue for anyone who did business in the Kingdom of Waves, especially if someone was coming from the south of this kingdom.
The Kingdom of Waves and the Brown Kingdom were divided by a mountain range until the beginning of the Black Plain's territory, making it considerably challenging to travel by land in this region.
And since most of the trade between the kingdoms was transported by land, passing through the Black Plain region was the best way which minimized the distance between the two states. And because of this, many traders from the Brown Kingdom and some from the Cromwell Kingdom used this stretch to reach the Kingdom of Waves.
Otherwise, there would be a need to transport these resources across the sea, which would make transportation more expensive. Obtaining marine spiritual beasts was complicated, and so the means of maritime transport were considerably slower and more expensive than land transportation.
As for the border of the Black Plain that was next to the Kingdom of Waves, a significant criminal group had made it as their lair.
This was due to the lower spiritual density of the region, which made it less attractive for the noble families who might want to keep those areas under control. However, this place was still considered much better than the Black Plain, which was why there were not many groups of bandits in Minos' territory.
As they further continued to discuss the matters which were of utmost importance to the Silva family, an elderly man hurriedly entered the room.
He was a servant of the Silva family.
Normally he would not have the courage to barge in knowing that there was an important meeting going on, but there was a very important reason for him to do something that he would never have the guts to…
"Patriarch, something terrible has happened," he said, his face ashen. In fact, he didn't really want to deliver such a piece of news, but… unfortunately, it happened on his shift.
While the servant was sweating profusely, Otis Silva glanced at him with an ugly expression and said with a frown, "Why did you come in here like that? Don't you see that I have an important meeting?"
"I'm sorry, patriarch, but this is really urgent. The sign of the young master Darell's soul has disappeared," the elderly stuttered as he lowered his head in fear.
He was afraid of being killed just for delivering such news!
"Huh? What did you say?" with a sudden jerk, Patriarch Otis stood up from his armchair in disbelief.
…
Meanwhile, two days passed by quickly, by now Minos and his group had already returned to the city of Portland while most of them had already recovered from much of their superficial injuries and were now training in their rooms behind closed doors.
After their return to Portland city, Minos had also purchased several spiritual healing pills to help his subordinates recover faster and contacted other alchemists, trying to make some offers to attract them to his side.
However, none of them seemed to show any great interest after he said that he was the sovereign of the Black Plain. After all, a few would risk going to such a poor place.
But Minos was not dejected by this because he had already expected to face such a result. But he knew that it would not be long before the news that his region had been recovered and was doing several businesses here on the Stone Island which was spread throughout this region.
With this, Minos was confident that, although these experts might not have accepted his offer now, it did not mean that they would not change their minds in the future.
'It seems that there is nothing else that I can do here in Portland,' Minos thought as he took a bite of an apple and gazed out of the window of his room at the city's landscape.
He didn't intend to do a lot of business around here since he would soon be heading to the Stone Island capital, Old Stone, so that he could buy the items necessary which would help him develop the Black Plain, as the capital was a place with better-rated products and higher quantities.
'I will wait for just one more day before we leave. Till then it would be better to give time for my soldiers to fully recover,' Minos thought before entering the Spatial Kingdom.
"I wonder how Ms. Elen is doing right now…" he muttered in a low voice. But as he thought about that young trader, a smile appeared on his face while he walked towards the house by the lake.
In fact, as a young 16-year-old teenager, Minos could not help thinking of young Elen as beautiful. And with his destination getting closer and closer, he had been even more frequently thinking more and more about how he would be 'interacting' with the young blonde.
'Ahh, I better get rid of those thoughts and start my training…' Minos shook his head with a sly smile on his face.
…
After that, it wasn't long before Minos began to perform a series of repetitive movements beside the lake's shoreline.
Spatial Sword!
Swooish!
Swooish!
The attack technique was activated dozens of times before Minos finally stopped for catching a breath. By now he was covered in sweat and had spent most of his spiritual energy during this training session.
Glub! Glub! Glub!
Gulping on the water hastily from the filled jug, he spoke irregularly while gasping for air. "Hu, hu, hu, it's getting more and more difficult to advance my sword technique. Hu, hu, hu, it's tough to keep it active while practicing it a thousand times…"
After a while of relaxing, Minos began to cultivate in order to replenish his energies. He then started training his defensive technique after a few hours of cultivation.
Indestructible Body!
Finally, after activating his defensive technique dozens of times, Minos then prepared himself to take the final blow of today's session.
A blade of energy flew in Minos' direction.
This attack came from the high-level grade-1 spiritual array which Minos had bought in Portland a few days ago.
As for why Minos was using it on himself, it was because this array emitted a blade attack equivalent to an attack by someone at level 39!
This was obviously to train himself.
Swooish!
"Phew, hu, hu, hu, I'm going to stop here," Minos said aloud as plopped on the floor to rest.
...
And so, a day was quickly concluded, and Minos finally decided to leave the Spatial Kingdom. By that time, all the soldiers had also made a full recovery and were ready to continue traveling further.
After leaving his room, Minos called Sergeant Pyke. "Is everything ready for our trip ahead to the Old Stone City?"
"Yes, young master. We rented three carriages here in Portland for the trip, and they are already at the entrance in the Olson Hotel, waiting for us," Pyke said calmly.
"Great, let's go then since we have nothing else to do in this city," Minos nodded as he walked to one of the elevators on the floor near his room.
It didn't take long before the entire group of 11 people left Portland city and were heading towards the central region of Stone Island.